Tejada latest to be suspended for PEDs

FILE - In this July 9, 2013 file photo, Kansas City Royals shortstop Miguel Tejada points to the third base umpire who ruled a strikeout in a baseball game in New York. Tejada was suspended for 105 games for testing positive for amphetamines, the MLB announced in a statement Saturday, Aug. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)
— AP

FILE - In this July 9, 2013 file photo, Kansas City Royals shortstop Miguel Tejada points to the third base umpire who ruled a strikeout in a baseball game in New York. Tejada was suspended for 105 games for testing positive for amphetamines, the MLB announced in a statement Saturday, Aug. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)
/ AP

Miguel Tejada is once again relevant, once again for the wrong reasons.

The 39-year-old Royals infielder and former American League MVP has been suspended 105 games after twice testing positive for Adderall. He'd previously tested positive under Major League Baseball's amphetamine policy and was subject to a 25-game suspension for a second test. It didn't take long for him to fail a third test, which added 80 games to his ban.

Said Tejada to ESPNdeportes.com:

I admitted I made a mistake. But I want people to understand one thing: I wasn't using a drug to take advantage on the field, or be stronger or hit more home runs ... I've been using it [Adderall] for the past five years and had medical permission from MLB. But my last permit expired on April 15 and they didn't gave me another. I knew that I was in risk of breaking the rules, but at the same time, I could not stop using the medicine because I suffer from ADD [Attention Deficit Disorder]. It's not a vice, it is a disease.

Whether that's the truth or not, MLB's current affliction grew clearer with this latest PED-related ban. The length of recent PED-induced suspensions have come under just as much scrutiny as Alex Rodriguez stepping into the batter's box at Fenway Park. Tejada's will be the third-longest non-lifetime suspension ever levied by the league, behind Steve Howe’s 119-day ban in 1992 and, of course, Rodriguez’s pending 211-game sanction.

Tejada has now failed three drug tests. Rodriguez has yet to fail one, though nobody needs to be persuaded of his guilt.

The lengths of both players' suspensions have been described as arbitrary, and there's a good chance they are -- this is, after all, new ground. Does Bud Selig know what he is doing as he writes the final, resounding chapter of his book as commissioner?